Robert Jackson was born November 6, 1944, at the dawn of the atomic age. In the midst of the deadliest war in history, processing began that day to enrich the plutonium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The following day, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term. Is it any wonder, then, that this war baby has had a life-long fascination with politics? Jackson's tales begin with the life lessons learned in the contradictory world of post-war suburbia and his family's ordeal during the 1952 polio epidemic. His rites of passage included living thousands of miles from home at ground zero during the Cuban Missile Crisis and working in a racially-divided steel mill at some of the most dramatic moments of the civil rights movement. Jackson provides a front-row seat to the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s, and his international adventures include Central America during the civil wars, Berlin as the Wall tumbled, and Russia as communism died at the ballot box. Jackson's memoir is more than a recounting of first-hand political experiences. He invites the reader to join him on a spiritual journey as he searches for a deeper understanding of the American political spectacle and the issues of war and peace.